We Are Not Alone

Other states throughout America have realized what New Mexico parents and citizens are beginning to understand: high-stakes testing, unfair evaluations and corporate America’s “business model” don’t work for children. If we parents and citizens in New Mexico are “status quo,” as those who push for these reforms in our state maintain, then why is it that all over the country people are revolting against these same school reforms? Something is up. And here in New Mexico, we have an opportunity to stop these reforms before they are permanently thrust upon our schools. It’s not too late!

Texas: In the state that is the birthplace of high-stakes testing and No Child Left Behind, there is a growing movement to kill reform. School boards across the state are signing resolutions against high-stakes testing. And dismissed at first as just a bunch of angry moms, a group’s anti-reform movement is making lawmakers’ heads turn in the Lone Star State.

Florida: New Mexico’s own Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera was the ringleader behind Florida’s reforms. Then she came here at Gov. Martinez’s invitation. In her wake, she has left behind a series of education disasters in the Sunshine State. And the state that Skandera led to the common core testing regimen, called PARCC, pulled out just last month. (Hint: You won’t hear Skandera and other pro-reformers talk about Florida anymore. Now they’ll cite Tennessee as a hero of education reform.)

Nationwide: Parents all over the country don’t understand common core state standards and are starting to question where did they come from, what are they doing to kids? So movements are growing, and those movements were dubbed by a writer as the “Education Spring.”